Can we believe the Gospels?

A former chief magistrate examines the witnesses to the resurrection

Published: 28 March 2007 (GMT+10)

Clarrie Briese, B.A., Diploma of Criminology (Cantab), A.O., is a former Chief Magistrate
(judge)1 of N.S.W., Australia (now
retired). He is renowned in Australia for his work in rooting out corruption—no
matter where it was found—and in Christian circles for defeating a high-profile
humanist attempt to destroy creation ministry with lies (see interview,
Blowing the whistle on corruption). Here he applies his formidable legal
knowledge to the testimony of the Apostles.

The truth of the Resurrection stands or falls on the truth of the witnesses. Are
they reliable? Of the New Testament writers, there are six witnesses to the resurrection
of Jesus Christ, if we include the apostles Peter and Paul. These people have left
us writings in the form of historical documents which give us their testimony concerning
the resurrection.

The question is—are these historical documents reliable? Can we trust them? One
way of determining whether the documents are reliable is to put the people who wrote
them through the test a good magistrate or judge would put them through. The accuracy
of these witnesses depends on five things: their honesty, ability, their number
and consistency of their evidence, the conformity of their testimony with our own
personal experience, and lastly, the coincidence of their testimony with other circumstances
and facts.

Honesty

The writings of these five [witnesses to the Resurrection] contain some of the highest
moral and ethical teaching the world has known. If these men were not honest, then
they represent a baffling contradiction of what they themselves were proclaiming.

Were the authors of the four accounts of the Resurrection—Matthew, Mark, Luke and
John, together with Paul and Peter in their letters—honest? There is general consensus
that Mark and Luke were almost certainly the writers of the Gospels that bear their
name.2 There is no doubt that all
were dedicated followers of the man Jesus Christ.

As for Paul, we know that he began his career as Saul, the learned Pharisee who
was steeped in the knowledge of the Old Testament, who had studied at the feet of
the famous Gamaliel. He was a bitter opponent of the early Christian church and
did his best to stamp out the Christian movement by persecution and death for its
adherents. Then he had an experience which revolutionised his thinking, changed
his life, converted him to the cause of Christ, and made him the most powerful advocate
for it in the then known world.

Well, how does one ascertain if witnesses are honest in the sense of being sincere?

Taking character first. What observations are available? First, a general reading
of the writings of the witnesses gives the distinct impression that these men are
men of integrity and truthfulness.

Now it is true that many people in history have died because they believed in and
fought for a lie, but in every case these people did not believe it to
be a lie. They thought it to be the truth, worth dying for.

They portray Jesus as one who taught with great authority and conviction, as one
who had a passion for truth, who abominated
hypocrisy and abhorred lying and deception. They themselves were committed
disciples of the man they were writing about. As men of Jewish stock, steeped in
the Old Testament, they knew the requirements of their law that witnesses be true.
The only logical and sensible inference from all this is that they themselves were
honest men who were concerned for the truth. They were not deceitful.

Put in another way, the writings of these five men contain some of the highest moral
and ethical teaching the world has known. If these men were not honest, then they
represent a baffling contradiction of what they themselves were proclaiming.

As dishonest, conspiratorial men, the character they have created in the man Jesus
Christ is such that it would have been an impossible task for them to have done
it. How could five men conspire together to create a sublime character in a superb
piece of fiction which surpasses anything to be found in the literature of the world?
That does not ring true. Indeed it is so preposterous that there is scarcely a single
intelligent critic who argues today that the testimony of these witnesses is deliberately
false.

When one turns to the motives of these men, if the story they were telling about
Jesus Christ was not believed by them to be true, what possible motive could have
prompted them to proclaim it as they did and to die for it as they did? They certainly
knew when they went out to challenge the world with the proclamation that Christ
had been raised from the dead that the only reaction they could expect from the
authorities, both Jewish and Roman, would be opposition, persecution and death.

Now it is true that many people in history have died because they believed in and
fought for a lie, but in every case these people did not believe it to
be a lie. They thought it to be the truth, worth dying for.

Ability

Luke, who wrote both the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, has been shown by
careful research to be an historian of the first rank, so accurate and professional
was his approach to his work.

The second test for witnesses is their ability. To be believed, the witness must
at least be a person of sound mind and intelligence. He must have powers of observation
which enable him to observe clearly, and a good memory which enables him to recall
what he has seen or heard. The law presumes that a witness is of sound mind with
average intelligence and this presumption continues until evidence is brought which
establishes otherwise. This legal presumption would apply also to the witnesses
we are considering but, apart from that presumption, there are indications which
lead us to the conclusion that these men are well qualified as witnesses of ability.

First, we note that they wrote in Greek, although they were themselves Hebrews,
so they were obviously men of some literacy. Secondly, the writings themselves show
the authors to be men of intelligence and ability. For example, Luke, who wrote
both the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, has been shown by careful research
to be an historian of the first rank, so accurate and professional was his approach
to his work.3

One criticism levelled against these witnesses is that they testified from a position
of bias, that being ardent disciples of Jesus their testimony must be greatly affected
by that bias and colour everything they wrote about Him.4
There is the suggestion that this would have resulted in exaggeration and distortion
of the facts. On the face of it I suppose that sounds plausible. However, when you
read their writings, you do not encounter the language of fanaticism, the language
of prejudice, or language normally associated with a lack of objectivity.

Another example: The Gospel writers include in their accounts some of their own
stupid actions and mistakes, even recording that Jesus called their leader ‘Satan’.
Calculating, subjective and prejudiced men do not operate in this fashion.

Experience teaches us that where a witness divulges material or facts which belittles
the witness and puts him or her under criticism or in a bad light, and that material
could have remained hidden but for the witness volunteering it, you can be pretty
sure that such a person is telling the truth. Men and women do not invent stories
to their own discredit. So why would the Gospel writers include incidents which
showed up their past weaknesses, mistakes and stupidities? And why would they assert
that women were the first witnesses to the Resurrection, when that society regarded
women’s testimony as worthless, unless women really were the first witnesses?5

They also included difficult sayings of Jesus which could be misinterpreted and
place Jesus in a bad light. For example, we think of His prayer in the Garden of
Gethsemane where He shrinks from the thought of death and again His cry of God-forsakenness
on the cross. Men who wrote with a lack of objectivity, for example with the agenda
to present Jesus in the most heroic light, would be sorely tempted to omit that
view of Him. That the authors of the Gospel did not is a tribute to their honesty,
to their obvious desire to be accurate in the facts about Jesus.

Finally we have to ask ourselves whether these witnesses had the opportunity to
witness the facts and circumstances about which they were testifying. Their testimony
comes from two sources.

First, they were themselves eyewitnesses of many of the events about which they
testified, in particular, the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus.

Secondly, they also obtained material from other eyewitnesses and other reliable
sources. These five men were therefore in an excellent position to record the events
of the Gospel histories because a great deal of their testimony rests on the best
testimony of all—eyewitness testimony.

There is one final objection to the accounts of these witnesses on the ground that
these accounts were written so long after the events that they had forgotten them
or had confused them with various traditions and legends which had grown up about
Jesus. This was pretty effective criticism up until the last century, before which
it was thought that the Gospels had not been committed to writing until the second
century AD. It has now been established that the Gospels were written between 30
and 60 years after the death of Jesus.3

Classical historians have shown that even two full generations would not be sufficient
for myths to overcome a historical core. Thus the time gap between the Gospel writings
and the events they record are not long enough to affect matters of substance in
their accounts.6

Number of Witnesses

Photo by Dawn Turner, Morguefile.com

Lawyers all know the value of witnesses who corroborate each other. The credibility
of a witness is greatly improved, if what he says is corroborated by other witnesses
who say substantially the same thing. The more supporting witnesses there are, the
greater the credibility of the witness who is corroborated. Corroboration requires
that there is reasonable consistency between the testimony of the witness testifying
and the corroborating witnesses. Where you have discrepancies occurring in matters
of substance, the credibility of one or more of the witnesses tends to be destroyed.

On the other hand where witnesses support each other verbatim word for
word, in every minor detail, one inference that can be drawn is that the witnesses
have put their heads together and concocted the evidence.

Now apply this test to the witnesses concerning the resurrection. They certainly
corroborate each other on the major issues, in particular that Jesus had been crucified,
was dead, buried in a tomb, and had risen from the dead, and was alive. But there
is a seeming discrepancy in some of their details. Are these discrepancies such
as to weaken or destroy their evidence as to the resurrection itself?

I think not. Indeed I believe it is just those kinds of discrepancies, so familiar
to us in the courts, which give integrity and authenticity to their story. In the
first place they clearly indicate that they did not put their heads together.
They are independent accounts of what happened. Furthermore it is becoming clearer
with research that the four Gospel writers had different audiences and different
purposes in mind. This factor has a great bearing on some of the discrepancies and
of course some of the discrepancies are mere omissions of details. Secular historians
dealing with identical events also could be accused about discrepancies of that
kind.7 Yet they are not discredited
on that account, and quite properly so. It is to be expected that would be the case.

Attention to the discrepancies in the Gospels can divert us from the fact that there
is a huge amount of corroboration between the four accounts. In some cases the kind
of corroboration is so significant as to give special support for the proposition
that these men were recording the facts of history concerning Jesus with minute
accuracy.

Human Experience

Jesus’ divinity was apparent in His power over nature, such as in Matthew 8:26 when he ‘rebuked the winds and the sea’.

We pass now to the fourth test and that is to whether the testimony of the evangelists
fits in with human experience. When people testify in court or they relate an incident
out of court to somebody else, that testimony or account of an incident will usually
be subjected to a mental process of analysis by the person listening to it. The
question will be asked: ‘Is what this person is saying in harmony with my
own experience of the world? Is it possible that what the person is saying could
have happened?’

This brings us to what is probably regarded to be the most serious criticism of
the Gospel narratives. They solemnly report that Jesus performed miracles, that
He had complete power to alter or suspend the laws of nature. Indeed, that He had
the power to restore life to a person who was dead, for example Lazarus. Miracles
are not part of the experience of most people.

We know, too, that both within and outside church traditions there have been from
time to time claims made of miracles taking place and we know or we think we know
that these claims are false or highly suspect. Add to that our own life and there
is a conclusion by many people, perhaps a great many people, that the miracles of
the New Testament are also false or highly suspect.

So how do we account for miracles over nature, miracles over death, miracles which
are outside our own personal experience and the experience of people generally when
evaluating the credibility of the Gospel writers?

Does the report of miracles performed by Christ destroy the credibility of our witnesses
and hence the truthfulness of their accounts? Now, I don’t pretend to be an
authority on miracles, nor do I know how they might occur or what physical or other
processes are involved when they do occur. However, in my view of the world, not
only is it possible for miracles to occur, it would, given my view of the world,
be quite strange, indeed odd, if at certain points in the history of the world they
did not occur.

Reduced to essentials, there are two ways in which this world is sought to be explained.
The first is the materialist explanation, which says that the world has been in
existence for countless millions of years and, in the course of time, matter in
the world has evolved into the forms of life and nature. This development and the
processes which underlie it are not controlled by any independent intelligence.
Essentially, the world as we know it today has happened by chance, by accident.

The second explanation is that the world as we know it was brought into being by
the power of an Almighty God, a God who is infinitely superior to and separate from
nature—the world did not happen by chance.

I am not an academic, but I regard myself to be a person of average intelligence.
Over the years I have looked at the work of a number of eminent people who expound
the first explanation, as well as those who support the second. I can only say that
I believe the second explanation to be the true explanation and the first one false.

If that explanation of the world is true, then ipso facto the God who created
this world and the laws which govern it has also the power to override or addto
those laws. That He has from time to time through history exercised that power to
serve His purposes is the claim of the people of God from the Old and New Testaments
of the Bible.8

In particular, during the three years of the ministry of Jesus, the claim is made
by Jesus and attested to by four witnesses, that it is by His miracles as well as
by His teaching that He demonstrated Himself to be uniquely related to the God of
the Old Testament, that He was indeed the
Divine Son of God.

So my view is this—not only does the appearance of miracles in the account of the
Gospel writers not destroy their credibility, it would be their absence
which would destroy it. For if Jesus did not have the power to perform miracles,
He could not have been the Messiah,
prophesied and spoken about in the Old Testament. And we know that the New
Testament writers deliberately portrayed Jesus to be the Messiah.

Without the power over nature, He could not have been the special Son of God which
He Himself claimed to be. It is those very miracles, in particular
His resurrection, which gave authenticity to His claims to be God, and give
authenticity to His teaching about the Kingdom of God.

Coincidence of Witnesses

Stockxpert.com

Finally, there is the fifth test—that there be coincidence between the testimony
of witnesses and the collateral and contemporaneous facts and circumstances.

This involves, or should involve, potential knowledge of a considerable amount of
surrounding detail on the part of witnesses who testify to a particular fact or
event. Anybody who goes in for perjury is well aware of this. Multiplicity of details
is studiously avoided by a false witness. A perjurer confines his or her evidence
to one or two crucial facts whose attendant facts and circumstances are few and
simple.

The truthful witness on the other hand, is usually candid, ingenuous and copious
in his statements. He shows a willingness to answer all questions, even those involving
the most minute details, and seems totally indifferent to the question of verification
or contradiction. The texture of his testimony is therefore equal, natural and unrestrained.

There are many instances where the Gospel writers give detail which we find coincides
with details described by secular writers of the time. The most obvious one concerning
the resurrection is of course Pontius Pilate.

The Gospels state that he sat in judgement on Jesus Christ. Both Josephus and Tacitus
tell us that Pilate was governor of Judea at that time. Now from secular historians,
both ancient and modern, we are told that the power of life and death had been taken
from the Jews and vested in the Roman government. So they are in agreement with
what the apostle John wrote in John 18:31.

To summarise, one is left to say that the only rational conclusion is that the witnesses
to the resurrection of Jesus Christ are witnesses of the highest credibility. If
we are unable to accept their histories, why would we accept the histories of any
other incident in the human race?

Millions of Christians of all denominations celebrate the events of Easter. They
remember time and again the facts surrounding the crucifixion, death, burial and
resurrection of our Lord. When on Easter Sunday we hear the declaration ringing
in our ears once again: ‘The Lord is risen’, it is comforting to know
that on the basis of highly credible evidence, we can confidently respond: ‘He
is risen indeed.’

This objection also reverses cause and effect. Did
the bias cause them to report as witnesses to the Resurrection, or rather, did the
witness to the Resurrection cause the bias? J.P. Holding argues cogently
in
The Impossible Faith: Or, How Not to Start an Ancient Religion that there
are at least 17 factors that meant Christianity could not have succeeded in the
ancient world, unless it was backed up with irrefutable proof of the Resurrection.
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Comments closed

A reader’s comment

Nick W.,United States

I recently read your article “Can we believe the Gospels?” and I absolutely loved it. I can’t say I have ever read a comprehensive list of the main arguments against the Gospel’s truth value being refuted like this one. One thing that jumped out at me while I was reading it, one you have declared numerous times, is the essential nature of the creation/evolution debate.

The article reads: “Reduced to essentials, there are two ways in which this world is sought to be explained. The first is the materialist explanation, which says that the world has been in existence for countless millions of years and, in the course of time, matter in the world has evolved into the forms of life and nature. This development and the processes which underlie it are not controlled by any independent intelligence. Essentially, the world as we know it today has happened by chance, by accident.

The second explanation is that the world as we know it was brought into being by the power of an Almighty God, a God who is infinitely superior to and separate from nature—the world did not happen by chance. …

If that explanation of the world is true, then ipso facto the God who created this world and the laws which govern it has also the power to override or add to those laws. That He has from time to time through history exercised that power to serve His purposes is the claim of the people of God from the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.”

This shows the importance of creation. The Gospel practically lives and dies on the hinge of whether or not evolution is true. If there is no God, then there would surely not be miracles as recorded in the Bible.

I simply wanted to encourage you guys to continue your amazing work. I know many people try to downplay the importance of Genesis by saying Christians should only proclaim the Gospel because they say it is more important to new believers. I do agree that it is more important, but without creation, we wouldn’t have it!